The Laravel Podcast is brought to you by Tighten, your friendly neighborhood Laravel experts. Check us out at tighten.com and also by other sponsors you will hear about later in the episode.

Matt Stauffer sits down with Dave Hicking, Laravel's Agency Partnership Manager, to trace his winding path into the Laravel world — from a UConn IT library to Tighten (twice), Yale's rare books collection, Userscape, and finally Laravel HQ.

They dig into the evolution of the Laravel partner program, including the newly restructured tiers, and what Dave is actively building to make "partner" mean something beyond a logo on a page. The conversation covers the strategic thinking behind community growth, what real collaboration between Laravel and its agencies looks like, and why their success is genuinely, structurally mutual.

• Matt Stauffer on Twitter - https://x.com/mattstauffer
• Dave Hicking Website - https://davehicking.com
• Dave Hicking on Twitter - https://x.com/dhicking
• Dave Hicking on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhicking/
• Laravel Partners - https://laravel.com/partners
• https://randsinrepose.com/ - https://randsinrepose.com/
• Pragmatic AI Podcast - https://pragmaticai.fm/
• Laravel Twitter - https://twitter.com/laravelphp
• Laravel Website - https://laravel.com/
• Tighten Website - https://tighten.com/
• Suggestion Box - https://suggest.gg/laravelpodcast

----- Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten - https://tighten.com/

Big thanks to the companies that support the show:

Honeybadger - https://www.honeybadger.io/for/laravel/

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Thunk - https://tidyup.agency/

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